Dick Cheney shows up on television almost daily it seems–slouching, halfway smiling, with his trademark smug yet somewhat perplexing aura of invincibility–repeating the same drivel he has felt obligated to say ever since he left the Office of the Vice Presidency in January: waterboarding was done only in extreme situations, it was needed to protect America, and it was within the law.

Cheney, perhaps believing the old adage “if you tell a lie enough times, it will become the truth,” does not worry–at least outwardly–about evidence to the contrary. Obviously, the fact that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times over the period of a month and the  US Code clearly prohibiting torture flies in the face of his murky and muddled “enhanced interrogation technique” defense, but given the ambiguities that exist between information that has been released and what hasn’t, coupled with the lack of any official criminal investigation, he seems to believe he can flap his mouth off with impunity as long as he doesn’t blatantly admit to murder.  But as TPM suggested a couple days ago, it could just be a matter of time before the other shoe drops–the Iraq/al-Qaeda shoe. Unfortunately for Dick Cheney, it looks like it just did.

Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson,  former chief of staff of Colin Powell, had this to add today after his conversation with Rachel Maddow last night.

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002–well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion–its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just “committed suicide” in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi….)

If there is concrete evidence of what the Colonel suggests, and it sees the light of day, we will not see Dick Cheney on TV anymore. He will not be able to show up every Sunday morning to defend torture, or to claim Obama is endangering the nation, or to suggest a worldwide conspiracy hindering the U.S. from completing its objectives in Iran (yes, click the link, he actually said that today). He will be in handcuffs. On the way to jail.

Or so we can hope.